An Eclectic Music Collection

The other day I went through our music collection, housed in one cupboard in the sitting room, to do a spot of spring cleaning. Admittedly, it is a very, very eclectic collection. Some of this and that and the other. And apart from compact discs (CDs), I still have some 45 rpm vinyl records and many cassette tapes! Very old technology, but will still be hoarded for sentimental reasons. And I am supposedly spring cleaning? Tsk, tsk!

Some of the vinyls (CNB 2012)

Anyway this eclectic collection can still be roughly classified. Beginning with Classical music,  familiarised and appreciated since being a member of the Philharmonic Society during TKC Seremban school days in the 60s. There are more than 100 CDs, mostly a series collection published by Orbis Publishing (1992-95). Among my favourites are Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no. 1 and his music for ballets, Chopin's piano concertos, Strauss' waltzes, Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and Ravel's Bolero.

Then there is the Pop/Rock music of the 60s and 70s. Especially favoured were (still are) the ballads of the Bachelor Boy Cliff Richard, also of Andy Williams (and the most beautiful Almost there), Carpenters, Simon & Garfunkel, The R'n'R King (I mean Elvis Presley), The Beatles, and compilations of the evergreen music of this era. The music of the 80s and 90s run the gamut from Cat Stevens, Scorpions, Carole King (sing: I feel the earth move under my feet ...), Boney M, Abba, Kate Bush, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, to Enya, etc., etc.

Slam 'Kesan terbukti' album

For Malay music, we have the ever familiar P. Ramlee, Saloma of the buluh perindu voice, Sharifah Aini (sing: Ooooh kuda ku lari ...), and M. Nasir. During a specially 'Malay phase' for us in the 90s, we bought and listened to the songs of Jamal Abdillah (eight albums 1992-2009), Zamani & Slam (nine albums 1994-99, and that melancholic 'Gerimis mengundang'), KRU (ten albums 1992-2001, why?) Amy Mastura (four albums 1994-2003), etc., etc..

A & B with Norman KRU at PTPM, USM (199?)

During a 'Latin phase', while trying to learn Spanish, I acquired the music of  Iglesias, not of Julio Iglesias, but his son Enrique. I remember playing the albums Vivir (1997) and Cosas del amor (1998) over and over again. But let me be truthful about it, I still do not speak any Spanish beyond "Hola, que tal?"

As for our 'World music' collection, we did buy music CDs as souvenirs of the countries visited. I still have the very first - Canta y se Feliz* - a Spanish music cassette tape from Barcelona (1975) which can no longer be played (not surprisingly). Then there are among others, Persian classical music, Carinosa; Visayan songs from Philippines, Loy Kra Thong from Thailand, Chinese Orchestra Album, Sundanese Music from Western Java, Music of  Sri Lanka, and Shinhwa's State of the Art from South Korea (2006 K-pop).

Music of the 50s, 60s ...

When we were living in  Pulau Pinang, we used to visit the Cahaya Music shop in Komtar nearly every fortnight to shop for our music. Nowadays I do still buy the occasional music CD, mostly compilations of the music of yesteryears ... the most recent, 'The Rock'n'roll Years Juke Box Gems'. Usually I listen to music while lunching but I breakfast with the birds (singing). In the evenings though, I prefer to listen to the sounds of silence, really ...

*Spain's entry in the Eurovision Song  Contest 1974